


share the same space for a minute or two

by ohmalleys



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, the working title for this was 'it's like boring before sunrise' so theres that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-18
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-08-04 01:08:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16336829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmalleys/pseuds/ohmalleys
Summary: their eyes lock for a moment and troy remembers he’s home.





	share the same space for a minute or two

troy had miscalculated his date of return by.. a month? multiple months? the longer he spent on the childish tycoon, the further out into the future he had projected his date of return. because sailing is hard. and he gets lost. and so forth.

 

but he was home. he took a taxi from the port because his phone charger finally was past the point of repair several months ago (electrical tape can only do but so much), so he couldn’t remember anyone’s number to call. which is fine with him, because he thinks surprises are fun.

 

he tips the taxi driver the last of his cash because it was a long drive and troy spent most of it bouncing his knee or biting his nails or making any kind of noise he could. also, cash was about to mean nothing to him. might as well be charitable with his spending.

 

apartment number 303 looked the same from the outside. of course, troy figures. it should look the same. it’s not like he’s been gone for a decade. he fumbles for the key in his pocket, praying that the locks haven’t been changed. 

 

if they’ve been changed, he’d be utterly screwed. he could maybe walk to jeff’s apartment, assuming he still lives in the same place, since now he couldn’t afford a taxi ride anywhere else. hindsight is 20/20, he guesses.

 

but the key does the trick. he sighs, stands still. it didn’t sound like anyone was home. maybe he should have knocked? but  hindsight is 20/20! so instead he just opens the door and peaks his head in.

 

relief hits him in stages. the walls are the same color. he can see abed’s dvd collection on the shelf. the blanket fort is still up. it doesn’t seem all that different.

 

but, of course, anxiety hits him in stages as well. there’s a new couch? some furniture is moved around. where is annie? where’s abed? he had kind of, sort of, been planning on a surprise reunion. should he hide under the table until someone comes home? or is that weird?

 

troy lugs his suitcase into the apartment, “hey? i’m back! it’s me! um, troy..? troy’s back!”

 

troy ends up being the one who’s surprised. the bathroom door closes and abed walks out, carrying a bucket and wearing yellow rubber gloves, “troy?”

 

“abed!” troy’s hand flutters over his chest, “you scared me!”

 

“you broke into our apartment,” abed looks the same. minus the gloves. does he clean, now? usually annie cleans the apartment, though she was always trying to teach them how to properly remove mold.

 

“i still have the key,” they’re standing a good distance apartment. abed puts the bucket he’s holding down. he’s pulling the gloves off his hands, rolling down the sleeves of his cardigan.

 

“oh,” maybe abed looks different. his hair parted just slightly different? 

 

troy shifts his weight between feet, “i’m back!”

 

“you said that, yes.”

 

“back for good, i mean!”

 

“you look different,” abed narrows his eyes. maybe he’s trying to place the same thing on troy that troy is trying to see on him. or maybe he thinks there’s no way troy could be back. or that he’s dreaming. 

 

troy figures that it’s probably the last one. maybe abed thinks he’s dreaming and this dreamed-up troy is evil. he’ll have to say something only troy could say, but he isn’t sure what,” you kinda look different, too. do you always wear rubber gloves when nobody’s home?”

 

“it’s cleaning day.”

 

“there’s a cleaning day now?”

 

“on thursdays i clean,” abed clears his throat,” this is feeling kind of.. strange.”

 

“yeah, it’s,” this is the moment troy’s thought about for several years now. when he walks back into abed’s life and they run into each other’s arms because it’ll be like a movie. and troy would hoist abed up into a hug, maybe. and abed would say something along the lines of ‘i’ve been waiting for you forever’ because it’d be so dramatic that it’d make troy snort with laughter. that, or they’d reunite like at the end of  _ con air.  _ troy regrets not buying a stuffed bunny for the occasion.

 

“it’s..?”

 

“just not how i expected it to go,” troy confides, and slumps his shoulders, “i think i got myself too worked up, haha.”

 

“it’s cool,” abed shuffles, crossing the space so there’s less distance between them, “i’m relatively dumbfounded at the moment.”

 

“sorry.”

 

“no need. i just wasn’t prepared to see you on cleaning thursday, is all,” and once abed gets close enough, troy clears the distance and hugs him because it’s been a long day and a long trip and a long taxi ride and a long, long time since he’s hugged his best friend.

 

“this is so awkward,” troy’s voice is muffled since his mouth is pressed into abed’s shoulder, “i think i failed at having a cool reunion with you.”

 

“it’s fine,” abed takes a few seconds to hug troy back, settles his arms around troy’s waist, “we can try again, if you’d like.”

 

“okay!” and troy’s grinning because this is what he’s missed. he takes all of his luggage outside the apartment and waits to start the scene, counting down from ten in his head.

 

at one, he opens the door in a grand sweep, “ _ abeeeed! _ i’m baaaack!”

 

abed isn’t in front of the door, he’s off to the side doing the studio audience cheers like it’s  _ full house  _ and troy is uncle jesse. 

 

troy soaks in the applause and hooting until abed pretends like he’s stumbling in front of the door, “huh, troy? you’re back!”

 

“i’m back!”

 

troy pulls abed into an embrace, picks him up from his middle, “i’ve returned from the high seas!”

 

“oh, how i’ve missed you so,” abed acts as though he’s swooning, “it’s been too long.”

 

“and each night i thought of you, my dear.”

 

troy sets abed down, who is gradually breaking character because it’s funny to him. their eyes lock for a moment and troy remembers he’s home. he isn’t dreaming. abed isn’t dreaming. 

 

“want to play catch-up?” which is a phrase. it isn’t a game. but for them, troy knows it’ll be played as such.

 

“bring it on.”

 

“ _ bring it on: all or nothing _ .”   
  


they head over to the kitchen, sit down around the table. troy slaps his palms down to initiate a speedround of catching up, “what have you been up to?”

 

“chang got famous, so we made a movie partially starring him. then i made a few more movies.”

 

“levar burton is a really nice dude. but also a really famous dude. i only sailed with him for a couple of months.”

 

“ah, that makes sense.”

 

“where’s annie?”

 

“she had an internship with the fbi a while back. she’s in quantico right now.”

 

“that’s far.”

 

“i know,” abed purses his lips, “it’s very far.”

 

but the game doesn’t stop for reminiscing, “i got lost and went to france three times. three entire times.”

 

“britta lived here for a while. annie and i were, functionally, like her parents for a while. and we met britta’s parents.”

 

“i tried to keep a pet fish for a while but it was weird because i was also eating a lot of fish for dinner.”

 

“did you eat your pet fish?”

 

“NO,” troy huffs, “but after i dumped it overboard i think i saw a fish eat it.”

 

“may your fish live on in your memory.”

 

“amen.”

 

“jeff still works at greendale. i don’t go there anymore, though.”

 

“i beat 2048. did you know there’s an end to 2048? it’s not at the 2048, it’s just at a really big number.”

 

“i think we’re caught up,” abed leans back in the kitchen chair, “it’s about dinner time, i’m going to reheat buttered noodles.”

 

troy half-moans, “oh, thank GOD. i’m starving.”

 

“when was the last time you had buttered noodles?” abed is hovering around the fridge, getting out the things he needs to microwave.

 

“i mean. i had it a lot because i was trying to be, what’s the word.. frugal? and they’re like. super frugal.”

 

“amen,” abed echos back, punching numbers into the microwave

 

“hey,” troy starts to snicker, “remember when i almost burned down the apartment because i left that one burner on all night.”

 

“i could never forget that,” abed thinks back for a moment, “and you woke up in the middle of the night and thought it was unseasonably warm-”

 

“so i woke you up! yes,” he covers his mouth, “we could have died.”

 

“we would have been fine,” the microwave beeps, “that was in what i think to think of as season three of our friendship. we still had a ways to go.”

 

“yeah, your arc and stuff could never end with dying in a tragic apartment fire i caused.”

 

“imagine the ratings. that would be too dark for our genre,” abed ‘tsk’s to himself while stirring the noodles.

 

they end up eating out of the same bowl. troy takes a few minutes to remember how to use chopsticks before it comes back to him, so in the meanwhile he had spent some time hitting abed’s chopsticks so they’d start eating at the same time.

 

“we can visit jeff or britta if you want to,” abed says after his mouth isn’t full, “britta is a little harder to find since after she moved out. she has a tendency to go awol for periods of time, but i can just text her.”

 

“is it cool if we do that later? i kind of want to just hang with you for a little,” troy sighs, “sorry, it’s been a long trip. like, actual years.”

 

“i figured you missed them.”

 

“i do!” troy looks at the bottom of the empty bowl, which he had pulled more towards himself at some point because, christ, he did not realize how hungry he actually was until then, “i’m just stupid levels of exhausted right now. and also because i want to see you. like.. only you, haha.”

 

abed’s quiet. troy can’t tell if it’s a comfortable silence or a ‘i don’t know how to respond to you so i’m just going to let the moment pass’ kind of silence. he prays it isn’t the latter. 

 

abed stands up, puts the bowl into the sink to wash later. cleaning day must only extend but so far. he heads into the living room, “i figure it’s more comfortable to sit out there.”

 

troy trails behind him,” anywhere is comfortable, trust me. sitting feels so good. like you wouldn’t believe it. i think i gained my sealegs which made me lose my landlegs.”

 

“sitting helps?”

 

“yeah. but sitting helps,” troy eyes the new couch, wanting to sit on it. next to abed. and the sun is close to setting outside because the day is nearly over and he considers that if he’s on the couch and falls asleep, it wouldn’t be too hard for abed to shift so troy is laying down for the night on it.

 

but abed sits in his typical recliner. so troy sits in his usual seat as well. it’s not as comfortable as the couch, but it’ll do.

 

troy coughs, just to fill the silence because it’s not the comfortable type, “remember when i made dinner for breakfast and annie was like..  _ soooo  _ mad? she was like: ‘what’s next? ice cream for breakfast?’ and i was like ‘no! ice cream is a dessert and the only dessert allowed for breakfast is pie or reeses puffs’.”

 

“that debate was very interesting. from my standpoint, i think buttered noodles are perfect for any occasion. we assign the dinner label to things we don’t always understand. it can be malleable. definitions shift over time. so on.”    
  
“yea, exactly whatever that means!” troy’s face lights up, “remember when annie first moved in and she used to pretend to bang on the blanket forts’ walls to tell us to keep it down?”

 

abed sighs fondly, “the implication that a banging sound is what a blanket fort would make when knocked on hard enough always brought me such a specific joy. also, annie should have gone into foley work.”

 

“i KNOW right? she was so good at making it sound like she was actually banging and stuff!” troy shuts his eyes, “i miss annie.”

 

“i do, too,” abed twirls his fingers in his lap, “but she usually comes back from for holidays, so we could probably see her soon.”

 

“or go out to visit her,” troy suggests,” i think i can handle a plane. unless being at sea level for so long makes being above sea level hurt more?”

 

“i don’t think it works like that.” troy sighs in relief.

 

“annie made the best pancakes,” abed allows a moment of silence for remembrance of the time he catfished annie in the name of pancakes. which leads into an implied moment of silence for the time he tricked britta into bringing him doughnuts every morning. 

 

“her chocolate chip ones.. or that one she called the chunky hunky funky monkey cake.. ihop wishes they had the culinary talents she had.”

 

“she can make pancake art now,” abed provides.

 

“pancake.. what?”

 

he looks at troy for a moment like he can’t believe him, then remembers troy probably hasn’t seen what buzzfeed is up to these days or what is even happening on facebook anymore. or that troy probably doesn’t even know that facebook isn’t even that big of a deal anymore, “it’s a cultural phenomenon. it’s like painting but your paint is batter and the time limit is however long it takes until you’ve scorched the entire thing.”

 

“annie can do THAT?” troy grins ear-to-ear, trying to imagine what pancake art even looks like. he also imagines annie with pancake batter on her face which is equally funny and cute to him, “she is, like.. the coolest.”

 

“the coolest person we’ve ever known,” abed agrees.

 

“hey,” troy thinks over if the answer is worth asking the question, but ventures anyways, “did you ever do, like.. annie and abed in the morning? i wouldn’t be jealous or anything! just wanna know.”

 

“no. but we did try to come up with a handshake together with mixed success,” abed’s eyebrows furrow, “troy and abed in the morning was copyrighted. i could never change the name without your consent, and i would never dream of it.”

 

troy’s shoulders feel as though a weight had been lifted off of them, “okay, cool. whew. i wasn’t worried about that or anything. i was like.. okay, i was kind of worried.”

 

“it’s fine,” abed changes the subject, “so, you’re out of the loop on pop culture that occurred after 2014, i’m assuming?”

 

“yeah, that’s a good assumption. my phone never had service or, like, the data or anything to look at that stuff online. did  _ glee _ end finally?”

 

“ _ glee _ ended.”

 

“WHEW,” troy huffs, “okay. that’s a super big load off.”

 

“life, so far, has been uphill since then, yes.” abed pauses, trying to search back in his brain for things that occurred after 2014 that troy would want to know about, “they cancelled the american _ inspector spacetime _ . which faired well for every party involved, since pulling the plug on that show was like when they shot old yeller at the end of  _ old yeller.” _

 

troy sniffles, “that sounds sad, then.”

 

“old yeller had rabies, troy. it was for the best.” abed continues, “that show had rabies. i kept up with it while it still aired, which means at any moment i was at risk for being bit and contracting rabies myself. it’s the line i was willing to walk, but it was too dangerous to be sustainable.”

 

“oh, okay. i guess it would suck if you had rabies. on the ocean, you totally forget about rabies and stuff like that. also i forgot what cats looked like.”

 

“cats don’t like me.”

 

“i’ll keep forgetting what cats look like, then. until they make amends with you,” troy promises. abed mouths him a ‘thank you’, before troy carries on, “remember when someone hid garrett’s eczema cream in the ceiling vents and we had to get it back for him?”

 

the event was mainly abed using a walkie-talkie in order to tell troy if he should turn left or right while looking at the school map while they both talked about how this was like the plot of  _ die hard _ if someone remade  _ die hard  _ without even seeing the movie. then abed got the dean to play the  _ mission impossible _ theme over the intercoms so troy felt cooler while he wiggled through the vents.

 

“i presume annie’s boobs was the culprit in that.”

 

“oh, you’re right!” troy slaps his fist into his palm, “you know, i just thought greendale must have had some really bored bullies on its hands. but it was probably that. my faith in humanity is now, like… at least 5% restored.” 

 

“garrett is married, now,“ abed offers,” i filmed most of it. i mainly cut around the parts with garrett, though. sorry garrett.”

 

“oh, cool! can i watch?”

 

abed thinks it over, “you may. though it doesn’t end very pleasant for garrett. i just like to forget that part. oh, but if you watch it you can see frankie and elroy.”

 

“i know neither of those people.”

 

“they came around, what i like to call, season six of our time at greendale. frankie didn’t own a television. one time elroy and i watched bird together. that also had a tragic end, much like garrett’s wedding. they were cool, though.”

 

“cooler than me?”

 

abed reaches over, squeezes troy’s shoulder, “come on, hotshot. there was no replacing you. both were very welcome replacements for pierce, however.”

 

“alright, cool.” troy can feel abed’s eyes on him, probably trying to deduce for himself if troy was alright. which he was. right? “remember when we bodyswapped that one time? that kind of sucked, i guess. when you think about the context. looking back it’s pretty funny, though.”

 

“your impression of me pretending to be bodyswapped with you was very endearing. i would let you play me in a memoir, in fact.”

 

“aw, same here.” troy thinks over his next few words, “we should do that again, sometime. being you is kind of like.. comfortable. sometimes when i was alone and stuff and it was raining too hard outside so i had to stay below deck i’d kind of pretend to be you. which is totally weird, right?”

 

“huh,” abed rubs his chin in thought, “i’ve never done that--pretended to be you, that is.”

 

troy feels his face flush, “oh. sorry. then it’s totally dumb, right?”

 

“not really. sometimes i did pretend like you were a ghost. so i’d talk to you out loud, but really it’d be to the air. britta told me it was very morbid, but i told her you’d probably do something similar. so i figure this is your version of that.” 

 

troy looks at abed, his mouth hanging open slightly. abed isn’t looking back at him. he’s just doing the thing where he’s looking off into the distance, maybe trying to figure out if the conversation is over or not.

 

it makes troy.. sad. if he had to put a feeling to whatever it was that was going on in the pit of his stomach and the back of his throat. that abed kind of acted as though he were dead. or, it wasn’t exactly that. just kind of similar to acting like he was dead.

 

“we should stop flashing back,” abed finally concedes, and leans his back against the chair. a half-stretch.

 

“aw, c’mon!” troy does the inverse and leans forward. his hands are balled with excitement, trying to keep the energy high while he still can, “it’s fun.”

 

“i know, but it can’t be our fall-back. the narrative gets.. repetitive.”

 

“repetitive-schmetitive. i like remembering stuff with you,” troy brushes past the whole comment on narrative, “what you rather we flash forward?”

 

abed considers the offer. the same way he considers the way he’s going to order at the noodles & company. the answer doesn’t change, but he still approaches the task with forethought and precision.

 

he clicks his tongue, arriving on the answer, “alright. we can flashforward.”

 

“sweet!” troy pumps his fist, “alright, uh. flash us to tomorrow. what’re we doing then?”

 

abed shuts his eyes. troy’s always imagined his creative process as abed seeing a hyperrealistic vision. like if his vision was of that first room in  _ willy wonka’s chocolate factory _ , abed would be able to reach out and, say, eat the buttercup teacup and taste the real thing. 

 

of course, troy’s also had a lot of time to himself on a boat. so he knows that’s probably not true and maybe a product of idol worship. if he idolized abed. and he probably did. which he isn’t sure he wants to come to terms with the meanings of that quite yet.

 

abed’s eyes open. they’re kind of distant, the way he gets when he falls into director-mode. he splays his fingers out in front of him, “picture this--the time is 9:30am.”

 

“are we waking up then? because i think i want to sleep in.”

 

“9:30am. i wake up because the neighbors have set their toaster oven aflame after their latest toaster strudel incident.”

 

“they still do that? they still _ LIVE _ here?” 

 

“they’re lovely people otherwise, i’ve come to find out. minus this flaw.” he pinches his nose, trying to refocus himself, “it isn’t the fire alarm that wakes me up. just the smell of melting, maybe even burning, plastic because they’ve tried to reheat the frosting packet on top of the oven without remembering that it gets too hot to-”

 

“your nose always has been really sensitive.”

 

abed shoots troy a glance that means something along the lines of ‘your commentary is taking me out of the element’, so troy mimes zipping his lips.

 

“9:32am. i decide to get out of bed to get a shower because the plastic smell is giving me a headache. i consider what to eat for breakfast, given that i’m already thinking about toaster strudel. in transit to the bathroom, i check the recliner to see if you’re awake.”

 

“wait,” troy’s vow of silence is broken, “recliner? do we not have bunkbeds still?”

 

“in this particular flashforward you decided to sleep on the recliner.”

 

“and not bottom bunk? so you still have our bunkbed, right?” troy’s shifting in the recliner, felting as though he’s dangling above a volcano and about to be dropped in.

 

“of course i do,” troy exhales like he’s been holding his breath longer than he actually has, “it’s just, using the information on tonight i have so far and trying to project the trajectory of the rest of the night with it--you would sleep on the recliner. not bottom bunk.”    
  
“oh,” now it isn’t a volcano with lava below him. it wasn’t even anything he had to visualize. maybe it’s just the rug on the floor that they picked up on the side of the road on their way to moving in. it felt like good luck at first and then it turned out to be kind of smelly. also, annie confirmed that it was a very, very, ugly rug upon moving in. so it’s not life-threatening. it’s just kind of a let-down. 

 

“you.. seem upset.” abed’s tone is almost similar to annie’s. but not annie’s comforting voice when she knows she can deal with the situation, kind of more like annie’s comforting voice when she’s unsure of herself and not sure what angle to approach the issue at. troy figures that’s just the tone abed’s heard directed towards him more often.

 

“it’s just, like,” troy’s trying to figure out what to say because he isn’t really sure what’s making him this upset this fast, “i guess i thought we’ve been having fun so far and i like our bunkbeds and i kind of missed bunkbeds? like in general? even though sleeping in a ship’s cabin is kind of like sleeping in a crappy bunkbed in a way. anyways, i mean. i don’t want to sleep on the recliner. in like, any timeline. maybe the couch, but.”

 

“oh.”

 

“i don’t want to insult your.. director's vision and stuff! especially since i wanted you to do a flashforward. just thought you’d want to know.”

 

“unless the timeloop i’m envisioning is an ouroboros. the flashforwarding on my part causes the flashword to happen. neither can sustain themself on their own.” there’s silence. abed taps his fingers on the arm of the chair, “am i making sense, here?”

 

“DUDE,” troy slams his palms on his lap, trying to remain seated in a way that wasn’t showing he was feeling overly emotional at the moment, “that’s SO not the point.”

 

and he doesn’t elaborate. so they sit for a moment in silence. troy picks at his cuticles because he isn’t sure what else to do.

 

“i’m.. sorry.” it’s belabored, but it’s something, “i’ve been told i’m stubborn on things like this. i guess i didn’t want to buy into it because it was something therapist britta said.”

 

“okay, one: i know she’s britta and all, but that was ages ago. can we let it go that she tried to therapize you. therapize? is that a word? whatever. she was just trying to help.”

 

“i’ve never wanted help,” abed pauses, considering, “and there i go being stubborn again. so i guess that proves her point. what’s two? i’m assuming this is a list.”

 

“two is, is… that was a sucky apology.” troy crosses his arms over his chest, sticks out his lower lip, “so there.”

 

“i’m.. sensing this goes deeper than you’re leading me to believe,” abed tacks on a question mark loosely to the end of the statement.

 

troy huffs, turns away from abed in his chair,” maybe it doesn’t.”

 

“but it does, right?”

 

“yeah,” troy bites his pinky nail, trying to think it over, “yeah, it does.”

 

“elaborate.” not a question. not a command, either. just a try at passive persuasion.

 

“it’s just,” troy’s eyes are darting around the corners of the room, trying to find something that doesn’t make him remember where he is. in their old apartment. where he can see the stove where they’d make dinner or the pictures within himself in them on the wall or the one spot in the corner where they’d have to ritually shoo spiders out from making a home there. 

 

“just..” abed provides.

 

troy bites, “we used to not have to ask if the other one was upset and stuff. it was like.. a spidey sense. i could feel your sadness from a room away if i wanted to, or something. and also we didn’t upset each other.”

 

“yes we did. we had an entire pillow versus blanket fort fight over something that was, overall, unrelated to pillows or blankets.”

 

troy sniffles because he’s a crier and it’s hard not to cry, “i.. remember that. but i mainly remember how afterwards it was really funny. annie made a makeshift gatorade iv drip for a fake war! how is that not funny?”

 

“funny isn’t the same as what you’re talking about, but, yeah, in hindsight it was pretty hilarious.”

 

“what i’m saying is you’re upsetting me and it isn’t very funny. like if i flashforwarded and remembered this moment i don’t think i’d find it funny.” troy moves onto biting his ring finger nail, “you apologize like you don’t mean it and you act like it’s my fault i’d be sleeping on the recliner. like, since you director-imagined the scenario, that suddenly makes you above the actions that could lead you there. i sound stupid, don’t i? don’t answer.”

 

“stop me if i’m following this wrong, but you’re upset because i couldn’t tell i was making you upset. that’s the gist, right?”

 

“yeah.. yeah, that’s right,” troy throws his hands up in defeat, “which i shouldn’t even be upset over! you’re always-”

 

“i’m always bulldozing over your feelings?”

 

“yes! and my sentences.”

 

troy doesn’t hear abed for a bit. he weighs stopping biting his nails in order to check on him. just to gauge his reaction on how likely it is he’d be sleeping on the recliner tonight. but he’s close to crying and it’d be stupid to cry right now, right? 

 

he turns aways. abed is looking at the television. maybe studying his reflection. he isn’t doing that high-pitched whine he does when he’s upset, but troy thinks he looks catatonic at the moment. 

 

on one hand, troy feels angry that abed is making troy being upset about himself. and, on the other, troy feels like a jerk for not indulging abed’s director fantasy, because they haven’t seen each other in years and, what is is wrong with him? can’t he just do this one thing for his friend? for abed?

 

he wants the night to go well. but the energy has been weird and off and it isn’t the same. no matter how much troy keeps bringing up the past when he still went to greendale and they still shared the apartment, he just can’t get the original feeling back. and it makes him want to try harder. to keep pushing until there’s the results he wants to see.

 

“i’m sorry.” troy means it. because he always means it. especially with abed.

 

abed isn’t nonverbal. not fully. troy reaches between the chairs and grabs abed’s hand to squeeze it. abed isn’t big on being touched, but anything to ground him usually helps when he gets quiet. 

 

after a moment, he clears his throat, “i’m sorry. about... i was rude. sorry.”

 

“i was rude, too. and totally wasn’t making sense. we, like.. we both weren’t. i guess things are going to be bumpy for a while. because it’s been a long time. so.”    
  
troy misses the natural pacing. the kind of pacing he’d spent sleepless nights in a rocky boat imagining. retracing old conversations in his head, trying to think of new conversations they’d have sometime in the future. thoughts of what the timeline would look like if he’d never left in the first place.

 

it only took two months of missing abed like a normal person would to start fantasizing about their reunion. 

 

how it’d be grand. how he’d pull his boat in from shore and abed would be there, waiting, at the port. and when troy would step off the ship, abed would tell him that he’s made a reservation at troy’s favorite restaurant. and how he got them a wacky pet bird that could mimic troy’s name in abed’s voice just for hijinks sake. and how greendale is exactly the same as they left it. and how he missed troy.

 

but the person in those fantasies wasn’t really abed. and reunions don’t happen like in the movies. you can only act out a redo to your reunion to make it feel like an episode of  _ full house _ . that’s as far as it goes.

 

troy lets go of abed’s hand and gets up. he searches around their dvd shelf for something to put on before settling on the season of  _ inspector spacetime _ he’s got the dialogue for memorized in full, even though its been years. if abed is going to be out of for a while, troy figures it would be strange to not being doing something in the meanwhile. and, additionally, abed loves _ inspector spacetime _ . especially since this version is rabies-free. 

 

he plays around with the newer dvd player, struggling to get it to work. finally, he finds the right remote and can make it to the selection screen to start it.

 

troy watches the first three episodes of the season and it’s nearly deja vu on top of deja vu for him. watching the show was like muscle memory. it was comforting to go through the motions. and it had been ages since troy had seen any tv at all. he had forgotten that scenes end and settings change at the will of the editor. 

 

he occasionally pops his eyes over to abed, who was looking more and more like himself rather than himself-but-very-upset-and-quiet.

 

eventually, abed stands up, “i’m getting hungry.”

 

troy grins, and turns off the tv immediately since the episode was nearly over. they’d just miss the credits scene, but it wasn’t too much to fret over, “yeah?”

 

“yeah,” abed goes into the kitchen and searches through the cupboards, “i didn’t know you’d be here, so i don’t have anything you like to eat, really.”

 

troy peeks at the contents of the cupboards, which are mainly empty besides lots and lots of boxes of noodles. also, several bottles of grenadine.

 

“whoa, buddy!” troy picks up one of the bottles, waves it in the air, “what’re you doing with this, huh? you drink?”

 

“no,” abed is talking over his shoulder, still looking in cupboards, “i just drink a lot of shirley temples. i’m about to open my comedically overstocked cabinet of ginger ale, if you want to look.” 

 

he opens the cabinet door and troy peers into it, “wow. yeah. that’s pretty funny, actually!”

 

“comedy is not my intent, but i can never turn down a laugh,” abed closes the door.   
  
“i can have one later, right?”

 

“of course,” they pinky swear on it just for theatrics, since there’s no way troy won’t get a shirley temple. unless he forgets. so maybe the pinky swear is to help him remember not to forget? it’s more about the gesture, not the meaning.

 

abed finishes looking around the kitchen, then looks at the clock on the oven, “it’s too late to go out anywhere. i don’t really have much to offer you to eat here, though.”

 

“not even doritos?”

 

“no,” abed replies somewhat solemnly, since the topic is serious for troy, “not even doritos.”

 

“well.. do you want to, like.. go to mcdonalds? they’re always open. or did that change while i was gone.”

 

“no. mcdonalds is always open. even in snowstorms.”

 

“they’d be open even if half of it was on fire.”

 

“if all else in the world fell apart, the mcdonalds would stay open through the chaos.”

 

“mcdonalds would become the new center for government, in that case.”

 

“you would be at a meeting for policies over by the grill, since the space would be so cramped. being that they’re still open so you couldn’t be in the main dining area.”

 

“and who would be catering your meeting? mcdonalds.”

 

abed grabs his car keys, “i’m assuming i’m driving, then?”

 

troy gives him an apologetic look,” sorry, yeah. learning how to sail made me forget how to drive.”

 

“it’s cool,” abed is switching out the lights on their way out, “you leaving to sail made me learn how to drive.”

 

“dude, you’ve been able to drive the entire time i’ve known you,” troy points out.

 

abed shrugs as he’s locking the door behind him, “i learned how to drive well, then.”

 

going to the parking lot, they made the same commentary about how the stairwell is too echoey as they’ve always done. it started when they first moved in as just casual remarks, then it developed into a bit where they’re both jerry seinfeld and spend the whole walk in an incomprehensible round robin of impressions. 

 

so, by now, it’s mainly troy going ‘WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH’ and then trying not to cry with laughter because he can already see abed preparing his next seinfeld impression before troy’s barely even got the first syllable out. and since the stairwell echoes so much, troy understands why it seems like their fellow apartment-mates hate them so much. being out of the loop on a joke is never very funny, after all.

 

the mcdonalds isn’t too far from greendale, actually. sometimes, troy would walk there between classes if he felt like there wasn’t much to do on campus. and there was never anything to do on campus. 

 

though, in hindsight, he figures that’s also what made greendale so fun. once, him and abed purposefully locked themselves into a supply closet. it was like an escape room before those got too mainstream. 

 

passing by greendale, he rolls down his window and sticks his head out. it looks the same. from his memory and from behind the window’s glass. so he didn’t need to really look or roll down the window. but it’s the principal of the matter, so.

 

“we saved greendale.”

 

“yeah, we sure did,” troy rests his cheek against the inside of the car’s door.

 

“no, i mean jeff, annie, britta, and i saved greendale. i guess you were on the save greendale committee for a while, too, but i think chang was at more meetings than you. and i wouldn’t really say he saved greendale,” troy shoots a look over at abed, but abed is looking in the rearview mirror and seems more into expository narration than conversing at the moment.

 

“oh, okay.”

 

“i think greendale was worth saving. it is worth saving. both tenses.”

 

they’ve passed the campus by now, troy rolls up his window, “it was nuts there. but in a cool way, i guess. you could wear clown shoes to class and your professor would be like ‘hey! me too’. y’know?”

 

“i know.”

 

“OR you could bring a squirrel in your bookbag and get extra credit if you let it loose in class because then a professor wouldn’t have to teach. or you could bring only a pillow to class and everyone would respect that. it was like.. the old west but as a school. no rules.”

 

“and it was, quite literally, like the old west once.” they both pause and sigh in remembrance, but don’t flashback to it.

 

“i miss paintball. even though at greendale paintball was like a.. a blood sport it was also like a rite of passage and stuff.”

 

“do you want to play paintball? i know there’s some competitive leagues around here, we can probably pitch a game tomorrow if you want to.”

 

“do i want to play..? oh no. definitely not. i never want to play paintball again,” a full body shiver runs through troy, “it’s kind of like.. what’s that word? nosferatu? the only thing that makes me still have positive feelings for paintball is nosferatu.”

 

“the word you’re looking for is nostalgia,” abed is turning into the drive-thru of the mcdonalds at this point, “though, nosferatu is a very funny reach.”

 

“i know, right? those sound nothing alike, actually!” troy stops laughing as they pull up to the speaker. abed rolls down the driver’s side window and looks at troy expectantly. 

 

troy spiels out to the girl on headset their entire order from memory. he knew abed’s orders for mostly every place within fifteen miles of their apartment or greendale. he also knew abed’s olive garden order, even though the closet one was twenty miles away (they just split spaghetti because sometimes troy wants to reenact the scene from _ lady and the tramp _ ). it’s not entirely that abed has ordering anxiety, it’s just one of the many perks of their friendship together because troy is better at ordering. 

 

troy mouths at abed ‘sweet and sour?’ and abed gives a thumbs up so troy clears his throat and leans more across the console, resting his hand on abed’s knee for balance, “how much sweet and sour sauce can i get with our order?”

 

“the twenty count nuggets come with six sauces--is that alright with you, sir?”

 

“can i have ten sauces? i like the sauce. please.”

 

“i can’t really punch that in. it comes with six.”

 

“what if i order a milkshake and then at the first window i take it off my order? i mean, yeah, you guys will already have it made by then, but you can’t let it go to waste.. tell me, you like chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla?”

 

there’s a pause. the static on the headset comes out of the speaker before,”.. strawberry.”

 

“alright! may i have a strawberry shake then, please? thank you.”

 

and abed flashes double thumbs up while rolling up his window. the hustle was always a risk, but the reward was so, so much sweeter. and sourer. 

 

they wink at the girl at the window giving them their food, even though it wasn’t the girl who was on the headset. just a casualty in the con. maybe one day she’ll move to headset and become an accomplice. but for today, she’s merely an observer. troy bursts out giggling as he counts their sauce rewards like it’s gold coins.

 

they sit and eat in abed’s car in the parking lot. mainly because abed doesn’t like to eat hot foods cold, or even lukewarm, because it grosses him out. troy doesn’t mind since he likes to listen to the radio at night since there’s no morning talk shows. being that it’s night. he knows the bar is pretty low for that standard.

 

“i wish our walmart was open 24 hours. i want to eat french fries with sweet and sour sauce while looking at electronics. i literally don’t even know what iphone we’re on,” troy leans the seat all the way back and starts to eat fries like a greek god would consume grapes.

 

“i can’t remember, either. i’m considering going off the grid to make a movie about going off the grid.”

 

“then you’d go back on the grid, right?”

 

abed sips contemplatively on his straw, “it’d be very mysterious if as a director i stayed off the grid until dropping new movies at random. i can’t tell if it’d be bizarre enough to swing my marketability back around.” 

 

“i guess i was kinda off the grid.”

 

“i’d say by most definitions you were,” abed looks into his fry container and picks out a soggy fry (he and troy swap crispy for soggy fries so they can both have an even ratio), “texting and emailing and whatnot have become very important to most communications, and you were unreachable on either.”

 

“yeah, i’m..” troy exchanges a crispy fry to abed, “i’m sorry about that, man. no service most of the time. and most of the money i had i spent on making sure the boat didn’t fall apart on me. and buying lots of… lots of canned beans. you would not  _ believe _ the beans, dude.”

 

“you’re fulla beans!” which isn’t really a joke or anything onto the conversation. just abed mimicking back something he’s heard before and was inclined to say, “speaking of money, are you a millionaire now?”

 

“you think i’m going to fund your next movie?” troy laughs, kicks his feet up onto the dashboard, “i mean, i totally can. if you want. no sarcasm. because i have no idea how to spend millions of dollars. but, nah. i’m not a millionaire just yet.”

 

“no?”

 

“nah. i still have to go to the.. law office or whatever. show ‘em all the proof i did the whole sailing around the world thing. then i get paid the big bucks.”

 

“when do you plan on doing that?”

 

“ehh.. tomorrow, i guess. whenever we get up if you don’t mind driving me other there,” troy shrugs, “i hope they give me at least 500 dollars of it in person. i just think it’d be cool to hold all of that. especially if it were in ones.”

 

“would you make a money angel?”

 

“duh-doy! right then and there. i’m a millionaire, they can’t stop me,” he catches himself, ‘then i’d give them the 500 dollars back since they’d have to clean it up. i can’t let the money go to my head.”

 

“hm.”

 

“what have you been doing with your life, by the way? i mean, just.. you, specifically. not the study group. or the save greendale committee which is kind of like a lamer study group ensemble, all things considered.”    
  
“well, i lived in california for a bit and-”

 

“WHAT?”

 

“yes, i’ve gotten that reaction a lot. i can see where it’s coming from, though. it’s cool.”

 

troy pulls his chair back upright, stares abed down, ‘why aren’t you still in cali, man?”

 

“i guess the movie business wasn’t for me-”

 

“NO. that can’t be true. you’re like.. better than spielberg! he wants what you have!” troy feels pumped up, “i’ll boycott hollywood if i have to, until they chose to recognize the name abed nadir! i’m basically already doing it, at this rate!”

 

“you don’t have to butter me up. it was a mutual agreement, really,” abed placates, “i wasn’t meant for california, california wasn’t meant for it. and dad needed me back at home, so i left after a few months.”

 

“but you’re cool now, right?” troy fiddles with the hem at the bottom of his shirt, trying to come down off his energy high, “nothing bad?”

 

“nothing bad.” abed bounces his leg, watches the moths that are flying around the lamppost they’re parked under, “movies are better made when they’re a hobby, rather than a career. and california is hot. and the traffic is bad. in-and-out isn’t that good, also.”

 

“amen,” they toast their mcdonalds drinks. 

 

troy watches abed from behind the rim of the lid of his cup, just to make sure he’s really, truly, alright. once it appears to be that way, he rebuckles himself, “back home we go?”

 

abed drums his fingers against the wheel, smiling to himself, “beginning transit to home. initiating...” he turns the key in the ignition.

 

troy watches abed drive for a bit. none of the songs on the radio that are playing are ones he knows. things are different, he notes to himself. while abed could always drive he was never.. the best driver. usually he just took shotgun when troy, annie, and him would carpool to school. and playing music while driving used to be too much noise for him to concentrate fully. now he seemed.. fine.

 

fine enough to move out alone to california and come back home on his own terms. no breakdown necessary. troy’s chest feels tight because he’s proud. and maybe, definitely, sad that he couldn’t see it all happen. or even text abed to read about it happening. things just changed on their own. without him. without them.

 

they pass greendale again. he rolls down the window and sticks his head out,” WHEN I SAY ‘GREENDALE’ YOU SAY ‘SUCKS’. GREENDALE!”

 

“SUCKS!”

 

“GREENDALE!”

 

“SUCKS!”

 

“GREEEEENDALE!”

 

“ _ SUUUUUCKS! _ ” 

 

abed has to pull over after that because he’s laughing too hard to focus, even though it’s late and nobody is on the road at the moment. troy can’t stop laughing, either, because he can’t even remember the last time he’s seen abed laugh this hard. by most standards, abed hysterically laughing didn’t seem as such; really, it just looked like he was a giggling mess. but troy knew it when he saw it because he’s him. it makes him glad.

 

another thing troy’s noticed about abed since their reunion earlier that day is abed smiles.. a lot more. not that he’s even been as stoic as he thinks himself to be, but abed smiling was still rare. and if he was smiling, it was more at a joke with himself, or when he was acting out a role. his smile wasn’t really for others.

 

troy feels the same feeling in his chest he hates and loves. he stops laughing, but he can’t stop looking at abed. things die down between them, “what made you go to california? i mean. what made you decide to leave and stuff?”

 

abed wipes at the corners of his eyes, regaining normal breathing, “it wasn’t an overnight decision, i can tell you that.”

 

he thinks on an answer for a bit, trying to tack down a narrative within his own thought process, “i knew i couldn’t stay at greendale. and i knew annie was leaving soon, too. britta is my friend, but the thought of the two of us sharing the apartment seemed.. it wasn’t very cohesive. i don’t think our storylines were meant to cross.”

 

“yeah. that makes sense. i dated britta and i think going from that to living in our own apartment together would be.. weird.” 

 

“yes. so i thought about annie leaving. and then i thought about you leaving. and i figured i should leave, too. if just for a while,” abed tents his fingers in his lap, his eyelashes obscuring his downcast eyes, “i guess i didn’t want to stay here since nobody else really was.”

 

“oh. that sounds.. sad,” troy watches abed’s face to see if anything crosses it. but aside from the corner of his mouth twitching, there isn’t much.

 

“i didn’t feel sad,” abed starts to pull the car off the side of the road, “i didn’t feel like me. i definitely didn’t feel like me once i left colorado. so, when i say it like that.. it wasn’t hard to come back.”

 

“hm.”

 

“yeah,” abed turns the radio up a little, “hm, indeed.”

 

they clean the trash out of the car and stuff into into the dumpster once they get back to the apartment. troy’s trying to catch his second wind at this point, since he did spend a good part of his day also trying to navigate back home, which involved more river travelling than his sealegs would have liked.

 

they’re halfway up the stairs before abed says,” what’s the deal.. with this stairwell? we’re trying to have a quiet moment and ‘thud, thud, thud!’.. i hear our own footsteps echoing the whole way up like we’re an army of people?”

 

“the whole way up?”

 

“the  _ whole _ way up!”

 

and troy has to cover his hand over his laugh because he feels tired and wants to burst out laughing as hard as possible. so he opts to lean against abed while choking into his hand, instead.

 

they race to see who gets to unlock the door first, which was an old game they used to play for no real reason. abed elbows troy in the battle, which immediately makes troy jump a foot into the air in recoil. so he loses this time.

 

troy sits himself down at the kitchen table. he’s not hungry. he’s very tired. and tomorrow, he gets to claim over a million dollars. by all standards, he should be going to bed soon. 

 

but instead he says,” can i have a shirley temple?”

 

abed grins at him, and troy’s chest does the thing he’s starting to feel like is going to just be normal, now.

 

while abed is getting out the glasses and trying to locate an open bottle of grenadine, troy peruses through the dvd shelf again. half the movies he’s either seen, or he knows they’re left over from annie’s personal collection. maybe some are britta’s, too. but some he’s never even heard of.

 

“we’re going to have to get me caught up,” he calls over his shoulder, “i haven’t even seen  _ the force awakens _ . let alone like.. half this stuff.”

 

abed comes into the living room area, and they toast their shirley temples together. they’ve got cherries in them at the top. troy grins at the little touch.

 

“my dear troy, we have so much to get you up to speed with. i hope you’re ready, because it’s going to be unforgettable,” troy isn’t sure what character abed may be playing, but he doesn’t mind the tone. or the wink.

 

but instead of picking anything to watch, they settle on sitting on the floor. it’s kind of like a sleepover, troy decides. but he used to live here. he might even live here again, if abed is fine with it and he doesn’t let his new fortune get to his head too soon.

 

but since it’s a sleepover, and his head feels fuzzy and his body aches and is running on adrenaline and what caffeine he’s had thus far, troy decides on, “want to play a game?”

 

and abed can never turn down a game, so he leans forward with interest, “name your game, barnes.”

 

“well, mr. nadir i was considering,” he waggles his eyebrows, “truth or dare?”

 

they had played it with the study group before. back when they actually studied enough to warrant study breaks. but that was years ago and everything is more fun when it’s the two of them. so abed gives him a single nod of confirmation.   
  
“alright. truth or dare?”

 

“dare.”

 

troy has to think about this. he came in with no intentions. he hasn’t even thought of a good dare in years. he looks around at the room, but doesn’t get too far before deciding on, “i, uh. i dare you to try to tie that cherry stem into a knot with your tongue.”

 

abed scoffs like it’s child’s play and fishes out the cherry from his drink. it takes him under a minute before he sticks his tongue back out, the stem knotted. troy figures he’s saying something like ‘easy-peasy’ but it comes out a garbled mess instead.

 

“truth or dare?”

 

“dare!”

 

“i dare you to do the money angel tomorrow. with all the ones.”

 

“oh, i see. kind of a long con for a dare.”

 

“what can i say?” abed shrugs, “you put the image into my head and now i need to see it fulfilled.”

 

“fine then. truth or dare.”

 

“dare,” abed is narrowing his eyes, like the game has points to it and he’s aiming to win. abed always takes their games seriously. he takes most things seriously, though sometimes he does it in a fun way. troy’s always liked his dedication.

 

“i dare you to tell me  _ donnie darko _ makes no sense.”

 

“troy, it makes perfect sense. it starts with-”

 

“keep going and i’ll dare you to always have to say you think it makes no sense whenever it’s brought up.”

 

“this is beginning to sound like truth or curse. are you cursing me, troy?”

 

“i’m cursing you, abed. now say it for me, please.”

 

he sighs, readjusts his criss-crossed legs, “ _ donnie.. darko _ .. makesnosense.”

 

“does it hurt?”

 

“it hurts me as much as watching it hurts your critical thinking skills.”

 

“okay, you’re cursed now! you’ve been cursed,” troy waves his fingers like he’s casting a spell, “you can never explain the plot of the movie again. you can’t even begin to imply that you know what happens in it.”

 

“fine,” abed studies troy’s face like he’s looking for a weakness, “truth or curse?”

 

“truth.”

 

“you can’t just chose truth because now you get cursed instead of dared.”

 

“hate the game, not the player,” troy pauses, “but. okay. curse. just this once.”

 

“i curse you to having to sit through all the oscars you’ve missed.”

 

“ _ abeeeeed _ ! but the hosts are never funny,” troy pouts his lower lip, “it’s so awkward to watch them read off the teleprompter.”

 

“who said curses should be easy? i have them all saved up in my dvr. for later, of course.”

 

“of course. now--truth or curse?” 

 

“truth.”

 

“is the new star wars good, or do people just think it’s good because it’s star wars?”

 

abed thinks it over, “it’s good. once you remember it’s star wars and you can only set your expectations but so high. that’s how i see it, anyways.”

 

“alright, cool. i’m going to pick truth, by the way.”

 

“you don’t want to get cursed again?”

 

“god, no. one curse is already enough for me.”

 

“what did you do when you were sailing that whole time? how did you pass the time?”

 

troy tries to narrow his answer down to just a few things. he spent years on the water. and it a lot of the time they were.. lonely and boring and made him scream at seagulls about WHY is he out here? why isn’t he home? why couldn’t it be over with yet? and so forth.

 

“well, i , uh.. actually learned spanish, for one. i think i know some french, too? don’t quote me on that, i think it was more in one ear and out the other. italian wasn’t too hard once spanish started to make sense. i guess that’s not really a hobby, though. it was kinda something i had to do so i didn’t.. die. or, i probably wouldn’t have died. just would have spent like.. twenty more years trying to figure out where the hell i was going.”

 

abed looks.. close to an abed-equivalent of shocked. his eyes are wider, for one. troy knows he was never the brightest in their study group, but a lot of practical talents always have a habit to coming naturally to him. so once being multilingual was of use to him, well.. it wasn’t too hard.

 

“i know how to tie knots well, so i’d practice that. i can fish. i spent a  _ lot  _ of time fishing. unbelievable amounts of time. so i guess if i ever become a father, i got that down pat. and i read a lot. but mainly reread  _ moby dick  _ because i think it’s a horror story? it kept me from getting too comfortable, yaknow?”

 

“that seems,” troy watches abed envision the life he’s described, “it doesn’t sound much like you.”

 

“yeah,” troy leans his back against the chair behind him on the ground, “i guess, for a while, i didn’t feel like myself. i mean, when levar was there for the first leg of the trip, i still felt like me. or, i felt like clone me. but once he left i kind of had a lot of time to myself. which was new! but it was weird. or, it was.. kind of weird? i don’t know. a lot of the time, i kind of shut up my brain and just did what i needed to do.”

 

abed’s looking at troy like he’s a stranger. and maybe he looks.. sad. like he pities him. but he can’t pity him. troy basically lived  _ eat, pray, love _ . by this time tomorrow, he’s going to be maybe the wealthiest person in his hometown. and that’s cool. that means he’s grown up.

 

“when i was in california, i don’t think i did anything,” abed is picking at their ugly, ugly rug, “i mean, i did movies. i filmed, edited. the whole works. but i didn’t know anyone there, so i didn’t get to share it with many people besides the people i was working with.”

 

“that’s why the movie business wasn’t for you, right?”

 

“i missed my dad, and the apartment, and greendale. it was like a fish out of water movie that went on forever. or like i was on a practical joke show but nobody ever announced they were punking me, so i kept doing the same thing,” it was weird to see abed open up. usually, he’s more abstract about it. he writes a screenplay that has his emotions veiled in the subtext. they play out a scenario in the dreamatorium that’s connected to how he feels. abed is blunt, but he isn’t always up front.

 

troy shifts his weight, “so you went home?”

 

“so i went home.”

 

“truth?”

 

“sure.”

 

“are you happier now that you’re home? for real?”

 

“of course,” abed’s shoulders are slumped, “i was.. miserable in california, troy. jeff has a whole slew of emails from me that are as deeply embarrassing as they are completely nonfictional. and since they’re to his greendale email, i think dean pelton reads them like his own personal collection of novellas.”

 

he straightens himself out, before troy can say anything else, “truth or curse?”

 

“truth,” troy’s feeling like the game has taken a turn he doesn’t want it to. on one hand, he wants a night of nonstop fun with his friend. but on the other, it seems as though neither of them have had anyone to vent to in quite some time. it’s as therapeutic as it is overtly melodramatic.

 

“did you miss me?”

 

troy’s heart feels heavy and he feels small, “of course i missed you! why wouldn’t i have?”

 

“you never texted or emailed or called. and i know you couldn’t have but it’s kind of hard to convince my brain of that. i don’t want to seem like a child to you, trust me.”

 

“i do,” troy gets abed. he gets that abed is trying desperately to say that he’s lonely. that he missed troy. that even though they’re clones of the original troy and abed, they still have their feelings. it’s just hard to say that out loud without sounding clingy, or like a loser that’s stuck in the past, “i missed you a lot, and i think i’ve had this conversation with you a thousand times in my head. which is silly, right?”

 

“no, i’ve run this through the dreamatorium several times over the years. and if not the dreamatorium, then just in my head.”

 

“so i guess you know what i’m going to say then, right?”

 

“i have a semblance of it, yes,” abed looks over at troy and his eyes are warm and crinkled around the edges, “we’re hopeless in a way, aren’t we? this is as corny and over-the-top as a drama.”

 

“we’re dramatic, all right.”

 

“i like that about us.”

 

“i missed you.”

 

“me too.” 

 

troy lets abed look at him like he’s special. like he’s someone important and like he’s going to save abed from whatever dark timeline they’ve been stuck in. because he knows full well that’s the look he’s giving right back at him.

 

and, troy figures, he’s himself now. he couldn’t have been himself when he was alone. he was missing his other half. and he’s allowed to think of abed in that corny way, because he knows abed must feel the same way about him.

 

“alright, abed. truth or curse?”

 

“i think i want a dare.”

 

“okay. truth or dare, then?”

 

“dare.”

 

“i dare you to tell me your opinion about  _ donnie darko _ .”

 

it comes easily out of his mouth, “it makes no sense.”

 

“none at all?”

 

“it’s stupid and it makes no sense.”

 

“attaboy!” troy pats his back and abed is smiling right at him,” you smile a lot. now, i mean. you’re all smiley!”

 

abed touches his hand to his mouth, maybe in a self conscious way. but drops his hand, “i was practicing it for a little bit.”

 

“i like it.”

 

“you do?”

 

“i mean, i like you either way. smile or no smile when you’re happy, i can usually tell. i guess it’s just nice, y’know?” 

 

abed seems pleased with himself, “i started practicing when i had a girlfriend.”

 

“whoa, whoa. when was this?”

 

“right around when you left. remember rachel from the sadie b. hawkins dance?”

 

“kind of… she had those big glasses, yea?”

 

“bingo. we dated for a while, but it didn’t work out.”

 

“did you guys like.. kiss and stuff?”

 

“a gentleman never kisses and tells, troy.”

 

“so that means you’ve kissed, right? because you won’t tell?” troy is rocking back and forth on the floor, “c’mon, dude!”

 

abed mimes zipping his lips and throwing the key. troy catches the key and unlocks abed’s mouth for him after they wrestle for a bit on the floor. troy’s got him pinned, making sure this time to not get hit by abed’s albows. but also making sure he doesn’t touch abed too much, being that he doesn’t really like being touched on most occasions.

 

abed gasps through his mouth once troy unlocks it, “you ever realize.. zippers don’t have locks and keys?”

 

and troy’s out of breath too, but his back curls as he starts laughing. through his laughter, he gets out, “you can’t distract me! answer my question!”

 

“of course we kissed,” abed is out of breath, but isn’t panting for air like troy since he didn’t just laugh half his lung out, “we didn’t really do much else further than that, though. like i said, it didn’t last too long. so, long story made drawn-out, i practiced smiling because it helped her read me better. but now i like to do it. so i do.”

 

“like, subconsciously?”

 

“yes. subconsciously,” abed’s looking at up troy, “that’s character development for you.”

 

troy huffs, his voice sounding airy, “i guess i’m a little jealous, then. because i missed that stuff.”

 

“don’t be,” abed shrugs on the ground, “i was just conforming to social cues other people recognize. i never had to do that caliber of stuff for you to understand me. everyone else needed the learning curve. and, like i said, i like smiling now.”

 

“you have a nice smile,” troy responds.

 

“troy,” troy looks at abed, beginning to realize he’s kept him lightly pinned on the ground for a hot second now, “truth or dare or curse?”

 

“truth.”

 

“you’ve thought about us kissing before, right?”

 

“huh?”

 

of course troy’s considered it. even before he spent half his free time imagining what it’d be like to be kissing anyone while he was busy being alone in the middle of the ocean, he’d considered it with abed. 

 

he’s thought about kissing abed because he’s seen enough movies with abed to know it’d be a satisfying arc to have their friendship turn into something deeper. he’s thought about kissing abed because it’d feel nice, especially when he isn’t dating anyone. he’s thought about kissing abed because sometimes being around him for an inseparable amount of days starts to make him feel like his skin is too tight and he’s got to release the pressure somehow. 

 

at some point, the thought just became apart of his schedule, just like quashing the feeling as become his automatic response. 

 

troy manages to find his voice, “well, yeah. sure. i mean, everyone’s thought about it.”

 

abed’s eyeline drops to troy’s mouth. him being blunt can mean he drifts into being pretty transparent at times, “do you want to try it?”

 

“i can’t tell if it’ll make the night weird.”

 

“this night’s been weird since the start.”

 

“amen,” troy’s arms are starting to hurt from propping himself up at this point, “i guess i’m kinda worried that now that we can be friends in person again, that this could, like.. mess it up, maybe? even if it’s a friendkiss and not a sexykiss.”

 

abed gets what he’s going for, “i’ve been thinking about it, too. every time characters agree to kiss with no strings attached, there’s always strings attached.”

 

“or if they agree to have sex like in the movie  _ no strings attached _ which is exactly like the movie _ friends with benefits _ .”

 

abed grins, “excellent synthesis, troy.”

 

“is it cool if i lay on you? not in a weird way. my arms are getting kind of tired.” abed nods and troy proceeds to rest his head on abed’s chest, “i lasted a long time, didn’t i?”

 

“the nautical life has made you a changed man.”

 

“here, here!” troy looks at abed’s face, which is sort of currently at an unflattering angle at the moment, “did we just talk ourselves out of kissing?”

 

“no, i’m still considering it,” abed’s fingertips brush against troy’s neck, “is this alright?”

 

troy curls into the movement like a cat, “more than alright. you would not believe how much my body aches.”

 

“do you want me to dare you to get a fancy deep-tissue massage with your newly acquired wealth?”

 

“i dare you to dare me, in fact.” 

 

“alright. it’s a done dare, in that case.”

 

“if we kiss,” troy feels like a bundle of nerves, this is one of the hundred fantasies he’s had before. he doesn’t want to trip over his tongue, but it feels like his heart is going to pound out of his chest. and since he’s laying on abed’s chest, he knows the feeling is mutual, “do you promise to not tell a soul? just in case it’s awkward and we regret it later. unless we agree to tell a soul.”

 

“i promise. a certain jeff winger will never hear a word of this.”

 

“OR annie.”

 

“or annie.”

 

“and do we promise to tell the other one if he kisses weird? just in case we go on to kiss other people, this would be the perfect chance to find out.”

 

“this is an ideal and safe environment, yes.”

 

“do you have any conditions you’d like to go over?” troy finds that pretending like this is a business deal is the closest he’ll ever come to feeling calm while still knowing what (maybe) is about to go down.

 

“none come to mind, right now. though, i’m not sure if this is killing the mood or not. i guess i’ve imagined this always as being a spur of the moment kind of thing, rather than a negotiation.”

 

troy’s face feels warm. he’s not sure why it makes him feel the way he does. he’s pictured kissing abed before. he’s even pictured abed confessing that he’s pictured kissing troy before. hell, troy’s pictured a hell of a lot more things stronger than kissing abed before. 

 

“troy?”

 

“yeah?” he snaps back to reality.

 

“i’m going to kiss you now, alright? because i ran the mental logistics on this, and if we don’t do it soon we’re going to chicken out. and i know i don’t want to chicken out. cool?”

 

“yeah,” troy licks his lips, adjusts himself so he isn’t laying down anymore, “super cool.”

 

the way they slot against each other happens as troy is sitting up while abed is leaning up. it’s not really a sitting situation, more of like troy’s the lifeguard he just saved abed from drowning and he making sure he’s breathing on the sand clearly. or something less dramatic than the whole scenario. but also equally as dramatic because the night seems to be infectious with the mood.

 

troy lets abed kiss him. the angle is off, and it’s more like his lips are ghosted rather than kissed. and neither of them are really touching much. as far as first kisses go, it’s silly. forgettable. not even disappointing in a way that makes it funny again.

 

abed sits up fully. troy is looking at him, trying to figure out his next move. abed snorts. his voice is quiet, even. not really a place troy’s ever heard it before, “that wasn’t very good, huh?”

 

“ _ yeaaaah _ ,” troy scratches the back of his neck, “i guess it’s a good thing we promised to not tell anyone. not that i think i’d ever tell anyone i just kissed my best friend that i haven’t seen in years because we had a business meeting over it.”

 

“it sounds ridiculous in hindsight.”

 

“completely,” troy looks at abed’s lips because he figures that if they’ve kissed and are being transparent with one another, than it isn’t disingenuous just to study them openly for a moment, “it was worth it, though.”

 

“hm?”

 

“because now it’s like. what’s there left to do? i guess that was the worst that could happen while still being best friends, right?”

 

“right. the die has been cast. the rubicon has been crossed. pick your preferred idiom, i guess,” abed settles himself to being half in troy’s lap, his long legs on either side of troy’s waist.

 

“and now it’s like.. i’ve always want to tell you that you’re super pretty, and now i can do that without feeling like it’s going too far.”

 

“likewise. i’ve always want to say you have nice eyebrows.”

 

“you have cute hands.”

 

“my hands?”

 

“they’re like.. picturesque. you should take up needlework. or just hand modeling or something.”

 

“like how britta did foot modeling?”

 

“foot modeling wishes it were hand modeling.” 

 

abed leans forward and kisses troy off-guard. just a light peck more on the bow of his lip than on his lips. troy tries to catch him in a quick peck back, but his reaction time was too slow.

 

abed pulls back, giggling. troy bursts out laughing, “thought you could pull a fast one on me, eh?”

 

“i did pull a fast one on you. you didn’t get me back.”

 

troy wraps his arms around abed, feeling like a koala bear in that moment, he laughs into abed’s chest, “we’ve got to be around two minutes from having a tickle fight or a pillow fight or something like that. right?”

 

“if you’d prefer, it can be a pillow battle. i can devise a strategy on the fly, though, so keeping it to an impromptu fight may be your best bet.”

 

“at survival?”

 

“yes. at pillow survival.” 

 

troy detangles himself from abed’s limbs, shakes his one half-asleep foot awake, “impromptu pillow fight in, say.. ten seconds?”

 

abed dashes up as they both locate the nearest pillow, “five seconds?”

 

“bring it on, donkey kong.”

 

“just you wait and see, super mario party 3.”

 

it takes about three minutes for the pair to stop hitting each other. the thing about their apartment is it’s small. and they have neighbors. and it’s the late hours of night by now. and they both are inclined to scream if the roleplaying scenario demands it. and this scenario definitely does. 

 

while troy likes to think he eventually breaks them apart, they both know it was whoever lived below them smacking the ceiling with what was probably a broomstick. 

 

troy picks fluff out of abed’s hair while they’re trying to giggle quietly to each other. abed ‘shh’s troy, so troy returns the gesture louder. 

 

troy’s looking at at abed like he’s the sun in his sky or something too corny that troy isn’t sure he wants to admit to himself just yet, “WHY did we do that again?”

 

“i think us kissing has broken our brains.”

 

“brain. singular. our shared brain has been broken,” troy notes to himself that he likes how abed’s demeanor seems to get giddier any time he asserts their closeness.

 

“any recommended cures?”

 

“we could do something really manly to cancel some stuff out.  _ oooh, _ like a blood oath.”

 

“i think i’d pass out if i saw drawn blood from either of us, no offense to your blood.”

 

“my blood takes no offense,” troy hits his palm his to his forehead, “wait, WHY did i suggest a blood oath? you know i don’t want to do a blood oath with you, right?”

 

“i think we’d have to be at least engaged in order for a blood oath to be acceptable even remotely,” abed shrugs, “metaphorically. figuratively, though.. i’d do a blood oath with you.”

 

“did you know you get  _ suuuuper  _ chatty when you’re tired?”

 

“i’m well aware of it, yes. that’s why we’re talking about blood oaths. or i figured it has something to do with it.”

 

“i wish i had never left,” troy blurts out. he bites his tongue, but abed is standing so close to him and they’re both holding the pillows they smacked eachother with for no reason other than to stop kissing one another, “things are kind of weird.”

 

“should we pantomime out a blood oath on the grounds that we stop trying to be weird around each other?”

 

troy shakes his head, “nah. maybe another time.”

 

“do you.. want to keep talking about leaving, then?”

 

“i guess,” troy shrugs, “i know having regrets and all is stupid. like i would have had regrets if i stayed and didn’t become a millionaire and stuff. because being a millionaire is probably about to be super chill and stuff. but, like.. i dunno. but even if i wasn’t a millionaire we’d still be friends.”

 

“are we not friends now?”

 

“no, we’re still friends. best friends!”

 

“cool. coolcoolcool.” abed sits on the couch, looks at his lap, “truth be told, you were starting to make me nervous.”

 

troy plops next to him on the couch, rests his head in abed’s lap like it’s second nature to him, “we’re still best friends, obviously. but now it’s kind of awkward? and sad? and stuff. i mean, not exactly in this moment. but i made you upset earlier-”

 

“we upset each other.”

 

“yeah. we made each other upset earlier. which REALLY blows. and, also, we had to have a dramatic reunion, but it wasn’t even, i don’t know.. satisfying. where was the.. the pay-off, you know? that stuff you always talk about with  _ lost _ .”

 

“we should have reenacted  _ con air _ .”

 

“i was thinking the EXACT same thing!” troy reaches up, squishes abed’s cheeks lightly between his hands, “you’re my hummingbird.”

 

“can you do it again in the accent nic cage devised for the movie. i can't immerse myself otherwise.”

 

“okay, sure,” troy clears his throat in preparation, and tries to summon the fake southern drawl, “hello hummingbird.”

 

abed bats troys hands from off his face, “if annie were here, she’d have to be casey.”

 

“it’d be so weird if our daughter was annie. though she would like that stuffed bunny.”

 

“very true,” troy’s pretty sure they’re having a comfortable silence at the moment. abed shifts his weight, “we should go see annie. we could fly out next week.”

 

“that’s.. the best idea! maybe even the greatest idea you’ve ever said out loud besides when you said there should be a movie about a dolphin that learns to read from levar burton!” troy keeps equally remembering and forgetting he’s about to be rich. they could fly first-class. they could rent out a whole plane. he could get tickets for britta and jeff and they could all go see annie. it’d be easy rather than a whole planning and financial ordeal like he had considered it to be earlier.

 

“i miss annie.”

 

“she should move back home!”

 

“she’s very successful right now. and you know how she is about her career and success,” the two agree that it’s a problem for another day, given the period of silence that follows.

 

abed’s tracing a pattern onto troy’s forearm in the meantime, “do you really think my movies are good? and remember we can’t lie to each other.”

 

“of course they’re good! you’re funny. and good at casting. and you can edit, which is super cool. not a lot of people can edit,” troy takes abed’s other hand in his and squeezes it, “you’re kind of, like.. an inspiration, you know? because you’re really smart with movies and stuff and you make ‘em even when people don’t ask for them. so that’s dedication, yeah?”   
  
“i think my dad is back on the swing where he wants me to give up movies entirely. after the whole california debacle i think he wants me to put them behind. even though i mainly do filmmaking as a hobby, now.”

 

“well, that’s stupid! you can’t make someone give up their hobby. it’s not like it’s your job or anything,” troy winks at abed, “so don’t worry about your dad. i can be your sugar daddy, starting tomorrow. i’ll fund you, baby.”

 

“ _ eugh. _ weird,” abed sticks out his tongue and troy snickers, “it’s not about the money. it’s just that i had his approval and then i lost it, which makes all those years trying to earn it seem like a bust. i don’t like wasting time, unless it’s on something fun and very cool.”

 

“well. we’ll just have to make a movie so good that it will convince him to let you keep filmmaking as a hobby. consider this an official plan, which we can totally carry out when my bones don’t feel like jelly,” they do a laying-down equivalent of their chest-bump handshake, which troy finds very funny because of how he has to bend his arms to make it work.

 

“i hope that works out,” abed says eventually, “i consider you to be good luck, so if it doesn’t work, maybe i’ll have to try to get jeff on board to give my dad one of his winger speeches. and if that doesn’t work, then it’ll have to be over for me.”

 

“i guess, like..” troy isn’t sure how to say it, “there is more to you than making movies. you also make videos. and you like movies. and you can write and edit stuff, but they don’t have to be movies. you’re really smart and cool like that.”

 

“huh.” 

 

“not to say that making movies isn’t important to you! because i know it super is. and i know you love it and stuff. just trying to be optimistic in the case of the worst-case scenario. which would never even happen because your dad loves you. he’s just difficult. like a reluctant hero kinda guy. like nic cage in _ con air _ .”

 

“i see what you’re saying,” abed runs his fingers through his hair, “it’s just i’ve never really.. thought of myself outside of being a filmmaker. that really seemed like my core identity.”

 

“i mean, it’s part of it! i used to totally feel that way about football. i was a football player. the quarterback and yaddayadda--you get it. i was cool in highschool and the prom king, not to humblebrag. but then i stopped being in highschool and i was just some dude. and i thought like.. half of my personality was ripped outta me, right?”

 

“well, that wasn’t true. you were prom king because you’re sociable and have a good smile and people liked you. you were quarterback because you were reliable. you can get taken out of the game and of highschool, but it doesn’t change what got you there in the first place.”

 

“see? and that’s like you, kinda! even if you have to stop making movies, which you won’t!, you’ll still be abed. you’ll still be smart enough to figure out plot twists before they happen and have a good enough memory to never have to write down a grocery store list because you memorized all of the tvtrope’s page for _ the next generation _ , so what’s a few more words to remember? ex cetera!”

 

“et cetera.”

 

“et cetera!”

 

“thank you,” abed is looking at troy with an unreadable expression. an expression that was unique to abed, that wouldn’t be visible to most people, “my self confidence has taken a few turns for unpalatable levels of self-pity, admittedly. if we were on the air, i think we’d get cancelled for my unquirky levels of genuine.. depression. bleh. i don’t want to say that word.” 

 

“don’t worry about it. you think my eyebrows look nice. my self confidence is basically through the roof at this point. if not for friend duty, then i would have to at least return the favor out of equivalency duties.” 

 

troy sits up in order to gather abed into his arms in a cuddle/hug combination move that abed accepts. he rests his chin on top of abed’s head, blows his hair out from around his nose.

 

“i think nosferatu is going to kill me.”

 

“the vampire dude?”

 

“no. nostalgia,” abed’s voice is in that small place troy doesn’t like because it seems different, “it’s really trendy to be nostalgic. like people who talk about the 90s all the time. and how good  _ rugrats  _ was. and how they shouldn’t have made  _ ghostbusters  _ with women because it’s not the version they grew up with. oh, that movie happened, by the way.”

 

“i’m containing my excitement only so you can keep talking, yeah.”

 

“so i’ve let myself become very nostalgic. for the first three seasons.”

 

“of our time at greendale, right?”

 

“right. even though towards the end of the third one it did start to get a little hairy.”

 

“i came back, didn’t i!”

 

“i was mainly referring to when i tried to cut off jeff’s arm, but that too.” abed wiggles in troy’s hold, so troy loosens up his grip, “what i’m saying is i’m stuck in the past. which is really embarrassing because, technically, i’m a clone. i didn’t even live directly though those things.”

 

“well having a sentimental attachment to your human life is fine, i think,” troy sighs,” and if i’m being honest, then i’ve been really nostalgic, too. which is kind of making me crazy. i think i went boatcrazy, abed.”

 

“you were alone in the middle of the ocean. it’s fine to remember not being on a boat.. in the middle of the ocean. meanwhile, i would be in the middle of greendale missing times where i was also.. in the middle of greendale. it was very counterproductive.”

 

“i get that. like, i think i miss you even though you’re here with me? which is really stupid. because it’s like i miss the abed that isn’t a clone that the troy who isn’t me remembers. which, you’re right, is counterproductive as hell.”

 

“i definitely thought that was a trope that couldn’t actually be true until tonight--the whole ‘missing someone even though they’re right next to you’ deal.”

 

“SAME! and it’s like. i know you’re you. and i’m me. but i keep thinking ‘oh, abed would never do this’ and ‘this isn’t the abed i remember’ and ‘we would never do this’ and ‘i’m not acting like myself right now, what’s wrong with me?’.”

 

“it’s the expectations of the reunion. you see it hyped up so much in media that when it actually happens, you forget that there’s still things that go on after the cameras stop rolling.”

 

“like uncomfortable silences and stuff! and fighting for no reason!”

 

“i was going to let you spend however much money on a plane ticket to see annie. thanksgiving is barely even a month away, troy. she’ll be home soon.”

 

“okay, i’m fine with that kind of irrationality. that can stay, if you want,” troy laughs, cups his head in his hands, “i wish i never left!”

 

“you’ve said that.”

 

“i mean that!”

 

“troy,” abed begins the sentence carefully, “i think you idolize me, which i am very comfortable in saying because i idolize you.”

 

“friends can idolize each other, right? or is it a bad thing?” 

 

“i think it’s bad when you’re nostalgic and dramatic, which we’ve established are both traits of ours.” abed takes troy’s hand, “because i think in some way i love you. but it’s not entirely you? sorry for confessing like this, because i’d much rather prefer it if it weren’t in this tangent.”

 

troy blinks, “oh.”

 

“tell me if i’m overstepping my boundaries because even i think i am,” abed pauses for troy to say something. but troy’s mind is currently in a hamster-running-around-in-a-little-plastic-ball state. which isn’t even safe for hamsters, let alone him, “but when you idolize someone you don’t have the chance to talk to a lot it makes you think about them a lot. there’s hundreds of divulging timelines i have in my head, troy. different ‘what if?’ scenarios.”

 

“i have those too,” troy says slowly, unsure if he can find his voice, “sorry, i think you saying you love me made my brain short circuit.”

 

“our brain.”

 

“right, our brain is short circuiting.”

 

“like i said, it’s not entirely you. it’s who i think you are and who i remember you as.”

 

“that.. kind of hurts. like it hurts the real me,” troy can feel his hold tightening again because he’s missed being in physical contact with someone so much that he wants to cram as much as it into one moment as he can, “but i think i feel the same way? sorry, that was.. kind of hard to say, haha? like, harder than i’d thought it be.”

 

“don’t worry.”

 

“thanks,” troy feels as though now’s a good enough time to kiss the crown of abed’s head, so he does so. it isn’t even that awkward, he figures, “so i guess we’re even, right? or do we need therapy or something?”

 

“or something.”

 

“well. personally. i think i’m fine with you loving original troy as long as i can love original abed. and then, eventually, i know i’ll love clone abed.”

 

“even if he can’t make movies?”

 

“of course.”

 

“if i may synthesize this,” abed clears his throat, “i’m still me even if i don’t make movies. and you’re you even if you haven’t played football in years. and i’m still me without you. and you’re you without me.”

 

“ _ yeesh. _ we’re kind of codependent, when i think about it.”

 

“we’re going to have to work on it.”

 

“can do.”

 

abed smiles, mainly to himself because his head is turned down, “i really am chatty when i’m tired.”

 

“don’t say that word, please. i’m exhausted. my bones, abed! my boooones!”

 

“if it’s alright,” abed detangles himself from troy’s limbs in order to get off the couch, “we can go to bed, now. if you want.”

 

“it’s super late, right? we’re not getting up at 9:30am, right?”

 

“right.”

 

troy manages to get off the couch even though it’s still warm from abed’s body heat and he feels more like a puddle of goo than a person at the moment, “okay, cool. can i sleep next to you?”

 

“it’ll be a squeeze.”

 

“please?”

 

“i wasn’t saying no, necessarily.” 

 

“double cool! can i sleep next to the wall?”

 

abed’s about to open up the blanket fort when troy comes up beside him. he turns to troy. looks at him for a moment, considering. he leans forward, downward. kisses the top of troy’s head, “there. now we’re even.”

 

“abed! i’m tired,” troy whines, “we can kiss each other like a thousand times tomorrow if you want.”

 

abed let’s him pass, trails in behind him, “is that 500 times each or a thousand times each, for a grand total of two-thousand?”

 

“dunno,” troy is kicking off his jeans, mussing up the comforter on the bottom bunk, “depends on when we get up and how long it takes for me to become a millionaire, i guess.”

 

“i’m penciling this in, mentally.” troy’s eyes lazily follow abed as he gets undressed to put on his pajamas. abed, in a fit of tired energy, throws a wink over his shoulder which makes troy go ‘hey!’ in response.

 

one of the good things about the blanket fort is there isn’t a window in the room, so it makes sleeping through the daylight hours an easy task. of course, troy muses, he kind of wanted to watch the sunrise today. because they were damn near close to it. and because it’d acknowledge time is passing. he’s home. he’s back.

 

but he stops thinking about it when abed lies next to him and yawns, “if you become a millionaire tomorrow, which you will, can we go to the dave & buster’s to celebrate?”

 

“the fanciest arcade in all of america?”

 

“the fanciest combination bar and arcade and restaurant in all of america, yes. you’re aware of it.”

 

“hm. i’ll consider,” but troy’s too tired to pretend like he’s thinking about it, “of course we’re gonna go. now pinky swear me on it so i don’t forget.”

 

“i pinky swear it,” abed’s voice is slurring together, troys eyelids are starting to feel heavy, “i dare it, too. i curse you to take me to dave & buster’s.”

 

tomorrow is going to be different, troy thinks. because he’s going to have a lot of money, yes. and because he’s going to see the rest of his hometown in the broad daylight for the first time since he left. and he’s going to have to buy a custom bunkbed that at least has a full-sized mattress on it, too. this’ll have to be their guest (bunk)bed.

 

but it’ll mainly be different because he’s different. because he knows how to sail and can speak spanish and could probably lead a boy scout troop with the amount of survivalist knowledge he has. 

 

but he’s also the same. he’s just more troy.

**Author's Note:**

> first off, i want to thank my irl bff for beta reading this for me !! tysm <> ;-;  
> additionally, i think it's always nice to have a musical tie-in when possible so the musical accompaniment for this fic is this must be the place (naive melody) by the talking heads (which is where the title comes from!)  
> and finally, thank you so much if you took the time to read this ! <3


End file.
